President Trump is plowing ahead to fill three vacancies on the liberal 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, brushing aside Democratic resistance to nominate conservative judges. Presidents traditionally work with senators from judicial nominees’ home state — in this case, California — to put forward judicial picks. They often seek what’s known as a “blue slip,” or an opinion from those senators.

But in a snub to California Democratic Sens. Dianne Feinstein and Kamala Harris, the White House announced Wednesday that Trump had nominated Patrick Bumatay, Daniel Collins and Kenneth Kiyul Lee (all from the Golden State, and reportedly all members of the conservative Federalist Society) to the influential circuit. The court, with a sprawling purview representing nine Western states, has long been a thorn in the side of the Trump White House, with rulings against the travel ban and limits on funding to “sanctuary cities.”

GOP critics have branded the court the “Nutty 9th,” in part because many of its rulings have been overturned by the U.S. Supreme Court. [Source: Fox News]

White House officials had been negotiating with Feinstein and Harris about the appointments earlier in the year, but the dialogue collapsed over the summer. Any working relationship is likely only to have soured further after Harris and Feinstein led the charge on the Senate Judiciary Committee against the confirmation of now-Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh.

Both Feinstein and Harris voted against Kavanaugh’s nomination, joined by all but one Democratic senator, but the nail in the coffin seemed to be Feinstein’s withholding of information about an allegation of sexual assault against Kavanaugh until after the judge’s confirmation hearings were over.

As Mad World News previously reported, back in July, shortly after Judge Brett Kavanaugh was nominated by President Trump to fill retiring Justice Anthony Kennedy’s seat on the Supreme Court, Palo Alto University professor Christine Blasey Ford wrote a letter to Dianne Feinstein accusing Kavanaugh of attempting to rape her at a drunken high school party 36 years ago.

However, instead of going through the proper channels to investigate Ford’s claims, Feinstein sat on the letter for more than six weeks. During that time, Brett Kavanaugh participated in 65 different meetings with various senators, among them, Dianne Feinstein. But she never brought up Ford’s letter or her allegations at any of those meetings.

Likewise, Feinstein did not confront Kavanaugh about Ford’s sexual misconduct claims as the judge sat for hours and hours of testimony before the Senate. Not until the eve of his confirmation, after the Democrats had already exhausted all legitimate means of thwarting President Trump’s Supreme Court pick, did Feinstein make Ford’s accusations public, igniting a political firestorm that would ultimately destroy the well-respected judge’s life.

Feinstein and Harris reacted angrily to the news of the latest appointments. Feinstein said in a statement that she had been prepared to accept a White House proposal of three other judges. She said she opposed both Collins and Lee, who she said had failed to disclose his “controversial writings” on voting rights and affirmative action.

“I repeatedly told the White House I wanted to reach an agreement on a package of 9th Circuit nominees, but last night the White House moved forward without consulting me, picking controversial candidates from its initial list and another individual with no judicial experience who had not previously been suggested,” Feinstein said in a statement.

Harris echoed the same sentiment, telling The Sacramento Bee through spokeswoman Lily Adams, “Instead of working with our office to identify consensus nominees for the 9th Circuit, the White House continues to try to pack the courts with partisan judges who will blindly support the president’s agenda, instead of acting as an independent check on this administration.”

If Trump was looking for a way to get back at Senators Feinstein and Harris in the wake of their obstruction during Kavanaugh’s confirmation, he couldn’t have found better means. Share this report if you applaud the president for appointing conservative judges to the liberal 9th Circuit!